United States Magistrate Judge Marianne Bowler approved on
Monday a request made by public defender Miriam Conrad to add a
high-profile name to the roster of attorneys representing the
19-year-old accused bomber. Judy Clarke will now join the legal
counsel that will defend the surviving suspect of the Boston
bombing when Tsarnaev is put on trial for using a weapon of mass
destruction, a felony terrorism count that comes with a possible
death sentence if convicted.

Clarke, a San Diego, California-based attorney with decades of
federal experience under her belt, previously represented
“Unabomber” Ted Kaczynski, convicted Atlanta Olympics bomber Eric
Rudolph and the Arizona man who shot former Arizona Rep. Gabrielle
Giffords in 2011. In those three cases as well as others, Clarke
succeeded in having her clients receive only life imprisonment
sentences in lieu of the death penalty.

Authorities say Tsarnaev killed three people and injured more
than 200 others when he and his brother Tamerlan, 26, detonated a
pair of homemade bombs during the Boston Marathon two weeks ago.
Tamerlan Tsarnaev died days later after a gunfight with police, but
his brother survived and is now accused of crimes not dissimilar to
those of clients Clarke worked with in the past: Kaczynski was
convicted of killing three people and injuring nearly two dozen
others with a series of homemade explosives and is considered a
domestic terrorist by the FBI; Rudolph earned that distinction as
well after being convicted of killing two and injuring 150 others
in the 1996 Olympic blast.

In approving the defense’s request to enlist Clarke as a
representative for Tsarnaev, Judge Bowler said the accused bomber
required an attorney with experience in a case where prosecutors
will likely seek the death penalty.

“In light of the circumstances in this case, the defendant
requires an attorney with more background, knowledge and experience
in federal death penalty cases than that possessed by current
counsel,” Bowler said. The appointment will “provide the
defendant with adequate and proper representation.”

Northampton, Massachusetts lawyer David Hoose has gone
toe-to-toe with Clarke in court, and speaking to Fox News he
described her as "simply the best."

"She has an ability to relate to people who are charged with
these horrific, horrific crimes and to humanize them, to portray
them as human beings to the government and to a jury," Hoose
said.

Just last week, Clarke told attendees at a legal conference in
Los Angeles about being "sucked into the black hole, the
vortex" of death penalty cases nearly two decades ago when she
represented Susan Smith, a South Carolina woman convicted in in
1995 of drowning her two young children.

"I got a dose of understanding human behavior, and I learned
what the death penalty does to us," she said, according to the
Associated Press. "I don't think it's a secret that I oppose the
death penalty."

Conrad also asked the court to appoint a second death penalty
lawyer, Washington and Lee University School of Law Professor David
Bruck, but that request was rejected for the time being.